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Monday, December 19, 2011

I am a sucker for organization. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside like a cup of hot spiked cider! My actual polish collection is stashed neatly in plastic boxes (in brand and colour order, bien sur), but I really *love* having a swatched version of all my polishes - it makes picking out a colour to wear easy and fun, without having to drag out my boxes. I've wanted to share this with you all for a while now, and today is the day!

What I have them swatched on is something like a plastic popsicle stick with a plastic nail on the end (hence, 'swatchsicles'). Each of them has a hole in the end, and I clip them all together using a binder ring. Here are all my pretties together....

And here is what one individual swatchsicle looks like - I write the brand and name of the polish on the plastic with sharpie pen.

Probably my fav set to look at - the metallics/glitters...

Sheer pinks/whites...(LOL they all look the same in this pic...I *swear* they are different...)

Reds, hot pinks...

Taupes!!

Blues and greens...

Plums and purples...

And all my bundles laid out...

I really think this is a lovely system and I know several other ladies who use the same thing for their personal collections. There is a caveat though...the swatchsicle sticks are available on eBay, but getting good ones is sometimes dependent on the luck of the draw. I've ordered several sets that when polish is painted on them, they wrinkle up and look horrible - the polish can never look smooth on the plastic nail, and it is just a waste. If any of you are looking to try this system out, the seller I most recently ordered wrinkle-free swatchsicle sticks from is lilyyangstore.

Awesome! Thanks for sharing!! I do something similar - I glue a fake nail to the end of a popsicle stick and write the name on it. I actually need to finish swatching my blues and pinks/cremes, but I ran out of fake nails. :)

Yes, I'm one of those, who use this system, I love it too!I too had bad clear ones, but then I bought the white/cream ones, and they are both sturdier and and the polish never dissolves the plastic.Send me an email if you want, I can give you the link.

Amazing! I have been intending just to create a spreadsheet / database with searchable / sortable colour / finish tags, but time just hasn't allowed, and if I did it, I'd have to admnit to the number of polishes I own...

I did just this about a month ago and am really happy with the ability to not only easily compare similar colors but to see how the polish is going to look out-of-the-bottle and in different lights. The eBay seller I use is susuway and I haven't had any difficulties with their spoons/sticks.

I use the white ones for darker polish and the clear ones for light polishes and layering polish (which you can then place over another spoon and get a decent idea of what any given "effects" coat might do to the base color).

I also have a spreadsheet (fessing up to collection of "128 and growing" polishes) AND I keep swatch images of every polish I have on my Pinterest board "My Polishes" (just for fun). :)

I just bought some of these (and had minimal wrinkling that eventually evened itself out after three coats, lol!) and think they're great. So much better than nail wheels (because I'd be constantly re-doing them all whenever I bought a new polish... which is like everyday...)

This is EXACTLY what I've been looking for! Right now I have nail wheels and I don't like how I'm confined to 15 or so per wheel. I checked out that seller's store and they didn't have any listed. I did find some other listings but now I'm wary of wrinkling!

Great system, your so organized. Do you ever show your polish collection? I'd love to see it. I need to organize mine better. I did have it by brand. I've added so many more polishes that they're all just in large plastic containers. They're all mixed up. Very annoying.

Wow, this is really cool! I've been meaning to do this but I haven't figured out how I wanted to do it on a nail wheel. By colour seems problematic with new additions, by brand seems arbitrary. This organization system is very versatile.

I also wanted to say that I've been reading this blog for some time and I had followed your Hunt for Red, which coincided with my own. Based on your hunt, I picked up an Essie Bordeaux at an Ulta and I just had a chance to wear it. Absolute perfection!=)

I'm surprised you don't have more polishes! :) That looks like a great way to organize them. I am fanatical about listing mine in my spreadsheet and swatching them on nail wheels, but the nail wheels are pretty annoying. They love to topple over and you can't re-arrange them to accommodate new polishes. I might have to order some swatchsicles... I have about 300 polishes ATM.

I have most of mine swatched onto nail wheels and have the wheels sorted by color and each nail numbered. I have a spreadsheet matching the numbers to the polish on my computer. I ran out of room on my purple and green wheels, though, which is where my system is lacking....

I have all my polishes in a set of plastic bins. I have around 100 tho so not too many. Why do you all put your polishes on nail wheels and these nail sticks? I just search through my "red" section when looking for a red, etc... If I decide to swatch my polishes on sticks/wheels I would definitely want to copy your organization tho.. it looks so nice! I love good organization :D

Okay, mine have arrived and I've cleared off the dining room table so I can cover one end with newspaper and get to work, lol. I hope 300 is enough. I'm definitely going to do some weeding while I swatch. I don't consider myself a collector really, because I want to wear my polishes...all of them, so near dupes and those ones that I love in the bottle but not on my nails will be rehomed. That serves the dual purpose of not wasting them and >ahem< freeing up space for more of course, lol.

Thanks so much for the idea. It's actually quite funny how organized I am about my polish when I'm so not organized about other things (my bedroom, office and bonus room look like a library got hit by a tornado...and I have at least 10x the number of books that I do polish. That's my NY's rez. Go through my built in shelves (24' x 7, eek!), and rid myself of enough I'll never reread to get all that I want to keep on the shelves. Maybe I'll bribe myself with polish!